Okay, for real. Can you senseis teach me how to see movies 9 days before they're released?

 

Seconded.

What the fuck, guys?

 

Europe release is Apr. 23rd I think.

 

Live in Australia. Literally in the future.

As for the movie, there were a few minor disappointments but it was generally great. I wouldn't rank it higher than Avengers or Winter Solider though.

 

Saw it last night as part of a triple bill with the first Avengers and Cap 2. It's definitely my favourite of the MCU films so far. Great action, absolutely hilarious and even Hawkeye is cool.

 

Saw it this afternoon.

Spoiler

I liked it in general, with the exception of The Vision, who is both super-OP and rather characterless. His inclusion in the final fight feels kinda like the Avengers have turned cheat mode on.

In general, I think Ultron has been underutilised. His threat level never really goes up to 11, and once the Twins leave him he seems to have lost much of his bite. I think the story might have been better if Ultron had successfully made himself his new body and the Avengers had needed to overcome him in that form with the help of the Twins.

There's that point in the story where all the Avengers, including the Twins, are finally all together in one place and facing off with Ultron. They engage in a big fight and the Avengers win simply because they're stronger. That's not very satisfying to me... the good guys should never win simply by being more powerful than the bad guy and beating them in a straight-up fight.

Still, outside problems with the central Ultron conflict, the film was great: lots of good interaction between the Avengers, some good character growth for the more under-developed characters, lots of humour, and an interesting role for Scarlett Johansson beyond being the obligatory chick. Though even now, it's kinda sad that the best use they can find for her character relates to a romance with a much more powerful contributor.

Elizabeth Olsen stole the show.

 

Spoiler

I liked Fury's entrance - and the continuation of that swearing gag...

Bruce - not Hulk - but Bruce threatening Wanda was fan-fucking-tastic, also Clint coming to the rescue as well, then Thor stepping in, I like how these three are the ones off the table along with Stark tho, does that mean it'll be these three plus Stark teaming up in CW?

Bruce making Veronica with Stark was a cool idea.

Hill always working for Fury was a given, but Im surprised Stark didnt know. But they apprently knew Fury was alive tho, so since they teamed up after SHIELDs fall, I guess Cap went to Stark?

Fury coming back and being all nice to Stark and acting like he cares, Im wondering if he actually does care about Stark when it comes down to it.

The ending scene with Cap, Thor and Tony was brilliantly done, shows how close they are to each other now imo. And then Tony leaving the team of his own accord... rather than being kicked out was what I was worried about....

Rhodes was brilliant.

9/10

 

This is why I despise movies that aren't released at the same time everywhere, or at least within a reasonable timeframe (within days). Granted, this happens to virtually every movie out there, but being in the US I normally don't have to deal with this shit.

 

Can a mod spoiler that biz? I'm tempted to read it.

 

Spoiler

It was good, but not as good as the first one. Honestly, some of it felt a little cheapened. There's no reason for Ultron, an AI, to have all of his bodies and minds in one place, especially when it would be ridiculously easy to just stash a single clone in some out of the way location, or even a simple deactivated copy of the AI on some server somewhere that will unlock after a certain period of time. I suppose Ultron's arrogance means he didn't bother creating failsafes, but it somehow loses a lot of the terror of facing an AI opponent. The scene from Cap 2, with Steve punching Zola on the monitor - that's what fighting Ultron should be like.

Vision was also a little disappointing. Didn't really have a personality (outside of a heavy tone of 'messiah'). I didn't like how he's just 'worthy' - I get the rationale, that he's innocent, and I did like his last line, but it just doesn't feel like he's earned it. If he'd retained more of Jarvis, that might not have been an issue, but he didn't. He got Jarvis' voice, but not his personality, which is a shame because Jarvis was a fantastic character who is now apparently lost.

Enough of the bad, though. This was, all in all, a pretty great movie. The Maximoff twins were great, loved their characterization. Pietro's death especially - it was a serious blow to the gut, especially since the film was heavily telegraphing Barton's demise. The kid being named after him was a nice touch.

Klaw didn't get much screen time, but I liked what I saw of him. Should make Black Panther interesting, especially since he needs a new hand.

Ultron... he wasn't what I expected. I was hoping for something a little more intimidating, and when he talked about 'small people' I was initially thrown, but I actually like the characterization a lot. It actually drew some parallels to Fisk, in some ways - both childish and brutal. The look he gives Wanda and Pietro when they run away in the doctor's lab is gold. It's part of why I'm unsatisfied with the ending of the character - there's so much they could have done with him.

I love the Iron Legion implementation, it's the clear next step for Iron Man. It will really be interesting to see how Cap 3 plays out given the events of this movie - there's no clear split between Cap and Tony so how are they going to play that out? We've been given confirmation that it is a Captain America movie foremost, so he's almost certainly in the right, but I keep coming back to that line about his dark side - "I guess you haven't seen it yet." I don't think they'll really go down that road but it would be a great plot direction if Steve, the paragon of goodness and morality, is pushed beyond his limits.

Cheddar, I think you won't be disappointed. This was definitely a Hawkeye-heavy film and damn if it didn't work really well.

 

My problem with the movie...

Spoiler

I think I'm done letting Marvel off the hook for underwhelming villains. There's no excuse here either. All the characters are as fleshed out as they could be - the new ones maybe not so much, but not really necessary - and they have James fucking Spader doing the business on the acting front.

I was just massively disappointed by Ultron. This isn't the opinion of a comic book purist speaking (I've not read one in my life) either. I just felt he could have been... more.

Without the twins, his threat level was just... not there. He throws robots at the Avengers and decides he wants to drop a rock on them too. I dunno, it just seems kinda lame to me.

The thought of SW bewitching the Hulk and him going on a rampage, that's terrifying.

I normally give these movies a pass on that though, I generally rather them focus on building their characters and making sure we love them than focus on anything that'll detract from that (Take GotG as an example).

The next one will probably be wildly different though, given the new characters that are being injected and integrated into the universe.

I still really liked it, but I wanted to love it. I didn't. Maybe a 7.5 for me? 8?

Hawkeye was really good, and unlike others, I like the Nat/Bruce romance. More Bruce, less Hulk plz.

As an aside, I had a moment towards the end while looking at the Twins. I started thinking about their old man and how hilarious that ending would have been if he'd shown up.

 

Imagine if there was a bad guy version of the Avengers, where all the villains get together as an ensemble to take on a powerful good guy. That'd be hilarious/awesome.

 

Watched the movie today. Hype, stardom and one-liners aside, Age of Ultron is an average flick.

 

I had pretty much the same issue with the movie, along with

Spoiler

Vision coming off as an asspull (to me, as someone who has never read any marvel comics)

 

Isn't that what Suicide Squad is?

 

I was kinda disappointed by the music score. It was really good for Cap 2, but this time around it was sooo underwhelming.

 

Suicide Squad is DC though. I think Princess is referring to the possibility of anti-avengers in the marvel universe where they can fight it out.

Personally I prefer one main villain because it's hard enough giving enough screen time to all the avengers, they don't have the time to expand the back story of say, 5 villains at once either.

Spoiler

The entire movie felt meh to me. As in, when I walked out, I didn't feel like the movie wasn't good, so that was a plus point given the hype, but after Avengers 1 I guess the charm wore off for me.

Scarlet Witch was my favourite part of the movie and even then all of my friends agreed that she was OP as hell. It was fun and I really liked the parts about Hawkeye, but to be honest the entire Bruce/Natasha thing just came off as awkward for me, my entire row of friends just turned away from the screen when it came to their romance... Also as a half-assed comic book fan even to me Vision seemed woefully underpowered. (He has the ability to destroy a galaxy on his forehead and all he can do is shoot beams out that can't even melt Ultron?) So yeah, didn't work for me, sorry.

The one liners were funny, but even now my memory slips from me about who said what. Thanatos was the only exciting thing towards the end. War Machine's try too hard was funny though. As was the hulkbuster 'go to sleep go to sleep go to sleep!' And finally Hawkeye's lines, just classic, and Quicksilver dying was a neat touch.

I really hope Cap A being able to move the Thor hammer is some sort of planned of foreshadowing, I'll admit my favourite avenger is Cap A and Hawkeye, I think Tony Stark turned his assholish up to eleven in this film and while it was human and entertaining for maybe the first 3 iron man movies it has gotten old very very fast in Avengers 2 for me.

7/10. It was a good movie, but forgettable. I feel like I would actually remember Cap 2 more than Avengers 2.

 

I loved SW too. I didn't mind the BruceNat though.

I'm over CapA and (I can't believe I'm saying this) Stark. Hoping for some major change in CW.

I'm eager to see Strange and, hopefully, Spidey in the future too.

 

I feel like I will love it when I've watched it a couple of times, I just don't love it yet 'cus it's new and I haven't had time to digest all the little working parts that I'll see next time, now I know the story. Oh, and neither I nor my friends were as taken with Hawkeye or SW as the general world seems to be.

Spoiler

The most distressing thing to me was Jarvis' replacement by the Vision. I'm going to miss his snark.

I was surprised that Tony and Cap' finished on good terms, waving off Thor. I thought they'd leave it frosty so the big thing we remembered was their fight over Vision before Cap's next outing.

And I'm sure Hulk will turn up before Phase Four, but imagine if that was his lead into a WWHulk film. Excellent.

I was surprised that Ultron wasn't menacing 24/7 but when he was . . . oh boy. Such great voice acting.

Would recommend, still it's not as good as GoTG which is basically Space Avengers with bitchin' music.